


Iphis's Price

by Elisabeth Hurst (Leela)



Category: Magic University - Cecilia Tan
Genre: Blow Jobs, Canon Trans Character, M/M, Masturbation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-11
Updated: 2011-12-11
Packaged: 2017-10-27 05:00:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,616
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/291840
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Leela/pseuds/Elisabeth%20Hurst
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There’s a long history between Quilian Bell and Callendra Brandish, and rescuing Frost is only one piece of that history.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Iphis's Price

**Author's Note:**

> **Disclaimer:** This piece of Magic University fanfiction comes from the anthology SPELLBINDING: Tales from the Magic University, published by Ravenous Romance. I am the original author. **Do not distribute further.**
> 
> A while back, I got an email from Cecilia Tan, inviting me to write a story for an erotic anthology in her Magic University universe. At that point, I'd read the first book, [The Siren and the Sword](http://www.amazon.com/Magic-University-Ravenous-Romance-Romances/dp/159003208X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1308506895&sr=8-1) but not the rest. By the time I got to the end of book 2, [The Tower and The Tears](http://www.amazon.com/Magic-University-Ravenous-Romance-Romances/dp/159003211X/ref=pd_bxgy_b_text_b), I knew exactly which story I wanted to write.
> 
> Of course, then I had to persuade Cecilia to let me write the back story for two of the professors (and by inference one of the protaganists) in her universe. Luckily for me, she not only agreed but filled in the pieces of canon (like Frost's original first name) that I needed for my story.

"Gilgamesh."

The name hung in the air between Gil Brandish and Quilian Bell. An accusation and a plea, a tangible reminder of what they'd refused to discuss in the weeks since they'd brought the Frost girl to Veritas. The tension between them had grown as they'd completed each moon phase of the ritual, until they were left standing in Gil's sitting room on the day before the new moon phase, the last stage, with nothing else to talk about.

Unable to stand it any longer, Gil looked over at Quilian and suggested, "You could at least try calling me Callendra."

"Not until tomorrow night."

"A day makes so much difference, does it?" Gil dropped his journal on the couch beside him and went over to where Quilian was standing by the windows. "I've been Callendra for years, or have you forgotten all the times you felt her up in a club, or flipped her skirts over my head and fucked me from behind?"

"That's not the same."

"To whom?"

"To me," Quilian snapped. "That Callendra had a cock. She loved to have her balls sucked and her ass rimmed. I loved to do all that to her. This... new Callendra will never have been a man."

"And she'll be me." Gil yelled the last word, rapping his chest for emphasis. "Or have I been mistaken all of these years? Have all your words of love been for what I am and not who I am?"

"No!"

"Then what? Because I can't see how else I'm supposed to take that?"

"It's not about you." Quilian dragged a hand through his hair. "It's about me. I've never been interested in having a relationship with a woman, and I don't know if loving you will be enough."

"But you've had sex with women before. I've been there. Remember? All those rituals in Sassamon, as witness and as participant." Gil did his best not to plead, to beg, to have Quilian agree that they had a future. "We're Esotericists. We can and do have sex with people of every gender."

But Quilian simply averted his eyes and said, "That's not the same."

"Well, it's all we've got. For now at least," Gil said. "And that's not what you said when you found Violet—" Gil hesitated, remembering the girl's vehement objection to anyone using her first name "— _Frost_. When you suggested that turning her into a boy was the answer to the prophecy."

"I was thinking about the prophecy and the girl, not about us, not about what it would do to whoever was transformed into a woman."

"It had to be me, you know that. We couldn't leave her in that house any longer, suffering through Dante's hells, while we searched for someone else who wanted to be a woman."

Quilian rubbed his hand slowly over his face. "Goatfucking faeries and their tricks."

"Isn't that the truth."

Silence fell between them again, heavy with frustration, anger, and sorrow, and then Quilian asked, "Is it so easy for you?"

"Easy?" Gil cocked his head, impatiently pushing back the long brown hair that spilled over his shoulder, and shrugged. "I'm not a boy. I never really have been. You know that."

"But?"

"I don't know," Gil said, saying his fears out loud for the first time. "When the spell's completed, I'll be a woman, inside and outside, and I have no idea how that's going to feel."

For a moment, Gil thought Quilian would move towards him, but then he spun around and strode over to the deceptively fragile-looking desk. He stood there, picking up and discarding in turn, the letter opener, the fountain pen, and a crystal apple that had been a gift from the Gladius's seniors the previous year.

Quilian threw the apple into the air, weighing it before tossing it up again and again and again, until Gil couldn't stand watching him any longer. Focusing his will, Gil beckoned and the apple turned in mid-air and flew towards him. A split second before the apple hit his hand, he redirected it towards the couch and stalked over to Quilian.

"Talk to me."

"Gil," Quilian said, raising a hand to cup Gil's cheek. "Gilgamesh."

Words crowded behind each other in Gil's mind, but all he could do was lean into Quilian's touch.

"It'll work," Quilian said, as if to reassure himself.

"Yes."

"Gil," Quilian repeated and then kissed him.

At the touch of his lips and tongue, Gil moved closer, pressing himself against Quilian. He looped his arms around Quilian's neck, sliding his hands into Quilian's thick, blond hair. Parting his lips, Gil welcomed Quilian's tongue, stroked it, sucked on his lower lip.

Someone knocked on the door. The triple beat was repeated twice with a single rap in between, indicating a student whose need could not wait.

They rested their foreheads together and then pulled back.

"I have to get that," Gil said, sighing.

"I know." Quilian brushed his lips across Gil's and went to get his robes from the back of the couch. "I'll let myself out."

After he heard the door to the outside close, Gil went to open the door that led to the rest of Gladius House.

*

Later that night, Gil stood before his full-length mirror, damp towel in hand. He'd twisted his wet hair up and off his neck, holding it in place with a pair of lacquered chopsticks. He stared at himself, at the not-quite-comfortable body that he'd lived in for so many years.

His research suggested that his body would remain essentially the same. He'd be a tall, slim, androgynous woman instead of a tallish, slim, androgynous man.

Dropping the towel, he ran his hands up his torso. His chest was flat and smooth with only a small whorl of hair around each nipple. He plucked at his nipples, encouraging them to tighten, and widened his stance slightly to maintain his balance when that sent shocks of arousal straight to his cock.

"What will they feel like," he mused, cupping his hands beneath his pectoral muscles. "Not too large, I hope."

He stroked his hands downwards, picturing his waist narrowing and his hips widening. He circled his belly button and trailed a thumb down the narrow strip of hair to the nest of curly, coarse dark hair that surrounded his cock.

Cradling his balls in one hand, he wrapped his other hand around his rapidly filling cock. Silky skin over muscle and blood and nerves. He slid his thumb over the head, spreading the precome, and groaned. All that sensation concentrated in a tiny nub. How would it feel?

He released his balls and rubbed his fingers over his perineum. There'd be folds, wet with her own arousal. He tugged on his cock, pressed in and out where her vagina would be, setting a slow rhythm. Watching, imagining.

"Circe, but you're gorgeous."

Gil opened his eyes and smiled at Quilian's reflection in the mirror. Not yet, he thought, but did not say aloud for fear of breaking the moment.

As he watched, Quilian prowled across the bedroom towards him, shedding his clothes as he moved, until he stood naked between Gil and the mirror.

Mine, Quilian's expression seemed to say. His hands shook as he placed them on either side of Gil's head. His kiss, his teeth and tongue and lips, claimed, possessed, needed.

And Gil surrendered. Released his own cock and balls. Molded his body to Quilian's, holding him tightly, making sure he knew in no uncertain terms that the night belonged to him. Whatever Quilian wanted he could have. Barring penetration, which had to be saved for the new moon spell.

Quilian's hands clutched, stroked, and caressed Gil's back as he sucked and licked his way down Gil's neck.

Arching his head back, Gil gave Quilian the access he needed. His mouth parted, and he groaned as Quilian scraped his teeth over the curve between his neck and shoulder. His legs trembled, and he dug his fingers into the muscles of Quilian's ass to hold himself up. His hips moved, twisting, thrusting his cock into the hollow of Quilian's hip, feeling the head graze the coarse blond pubic hair over and over.

"Sappho's tits. Quilian, please," Gil begged, wanting, needing more.

"Anything. Everything," Quilian promised. He began to move them towards the bed, pushing Gil backwards, picking him up and encouraging him to wrap his legs around Quilian's waist when Gil stumbled.

"Yes, like that," Quilian said as their cocks touched, and Gil shuddered.

Then his hand drifted down to Gil's ass, and his thumb pressed just above his pucker, and Gil muttered, "Bastard," even as he bucked against Quilian.

"Your bastard." Quilian's smile was crooked, and Gil would have kissed him for that, but he was unceremoniously dropped onto the bed.

"Yes," Gil agreed in a voice made hoarse and rasping by the word always that had stuck in his throat.

"And this—" Quilian settled between Gil's legs and licked a strip up Gil's cock "—is mine."

A second lick, a tongue-lash against his slit, and Gil was swallowed, absorbed, sucked into Quilian's mouth. He thrust up, feeling the pressure of teeth covered by lips, the press of a knuckle against his perineum, the twist of a thumb over his anus. Quilian took him deep, into his throat, setting a rhythm that had Gil clutching at the covers, spreading his legs, pulling them up and out. Opening himself up, wider and wider, and still wanting more and more and more.

"Can't," he managed, and then a string of syllables that could have been, should have been words. Then they spilled over, merging into one sound, and he was lost in an orgasm that shivered and quivered through his whole body and into Quilian.

When Gil opened his eyes again, Quilian was kneeling between his legs, one hand pulling lazily at his own cock. Quilian's mouth was open slightly, and his eyes had darkened with need. He didn't say anything. He didn't need to. Gil knew exactly what he wanted.

Forcing his aching, tired, trembling muscles to work, Gil gripped the brass bars behind his head and wrapped his legs around Quilian's hips, locking them at the ankles and raising his hips. He looked directly into Quilian's eyes, licked his lips, and said, "Yours."

A harsh sob escaped from Quilian. He fell forward, using his free hand to catch himself and hold onto the brass headboard close enough to touch one of Gil's hands. And then, arched over Gil, his teeth digging into his lower lip, he began to tug on his cock, thrusting into his hand, faster and faster. Until his eyes sought Gil's, and he was coming with a single keening cry, pumping warm seed over Gil's chest and face.

Then he collapsed, landing half on and half off Gil and then rolling over, taking Gil with him. Their legs were tangled, and their arms wrapped around each other.

Not wanting to wash off Quilian's claim, Gil ignored the uncomfortable sensation of semen drying on his body as he curled into Quilian. He rested his head on Quilian's chest, drawing comfort from the beating of his heart and the rhythmic movements of his chest.

"I've missed you," Gil murmured.

Quilian stroked Gil's hair, dropped a kiss on the top of his head, and whispered, "And I'll miss you."

There was no possible response to that, so Gil kissed Quilian's chest and held him close as they faded towards sleep.

*

Gil had been alone when he woke up, and he made sure that he spent the rest of the day that way, having arranged for the resident tutors to handle any student needs and for Master Lester to be on call for anything that was beyond their abilities.

He stayed inside, tidying up, finishing the last of the exams that needed to be marked before he could enter grades. It was an end of sorts, the pause before a new beginning, and he didn't hurry anything.

A couple of hours before moonrise, he took a long bath in water that he'd scattered with ritual herbs. He cleansed his body inside and out, preparing himself for the upcoming spell. Everything had to be perfect. Nothing could be allowed to go wrong.

An hour before moonrise, he brushed out his hair and donned a loose pair of pants and shirt made from a silvery grey silk and embroidered with light blue runes at the cuffs. He walked from his bedroom into the practice room and contemplated the sword. He slid his hand down the hilt, stopping at the top of the sheath.

Please! He threw the prayer out into the universe as he pulled the sword off the rack. Unsheathing it, he held it in his right hand and ran the palm of his left hand lightly down the edge of the blade as he'd done when he became House Master of Gladius House and Wielder of the Sword. The metal absorbed what little blood welled out, and he hissed when he clenched his fist and the pain came.

He sheathed the sword one-handed and laid it on the rack before going to pick up his cloak and leaving for Sassamon.

With luck and magic, the sword would accept Callendra Brandish as it had Gilgamesh.

*

Sassamon was locked and deserted when Gil arrived. The notice slot on the front door contained an announcement that all practices and rituals had been cancelled for that night by order of Dean Bell. He could hear a group of students grumbling and complaining as he let himself inside and went to the main chamber.

Candlelight flickered from the columns, but the windows were dark. The vaulted ceiling disappeared into the darkness, and the dim light gave the large room a sense of intimacy.

Quilian sat cross-legged at the center of the founding stone, deep in meditation. Ritual markings decorated the dais around him, turning the stone into a moondial. Incense burned in a tripod placed above the symbol for the new moon. A pot of lube sat in front of it.

Slipping off his shoes, Gil padded across to a carved oak chest and disrobed. He folded his clothes and placed them on the chest next to Quilian's. Then he took a deep breath to focus his magic and went to stand before the founding stone.

Quilian's mouth quirked into a crooked smile, and he held out his hands to Gil. "Shall we attempt to sidestep a prophecy with Iphis's Prayer?"

Stepping up onto the stone, Gil smiled back. "Of course, darling." He took Quilian's hands and knelt before him.

A chime sounded the beginning of moonrise, and Quilian got to his own knees with a graceful movement. They kissed, open-mouthed, with licks of their tongues and barely touching lips, moving through the planned slow build-up to full arousal. They needed to come close to orgasm twice before they went to meet with Frost.

Gil's fingers brushed against Quilian's as they caressed and stroked each other. With focus and concentration, he began the chant. Quilian's voice rose and fell, his own part of the spell winding around Gil's.

At the second chime, they stopped chanting and changed positions. Gil lay down on his back, his hands behind his head, his knees bent and his feet flat on the stone. They began the next part of the spell with Quilian taking the dominant strand and Gil the secondary. During each caesura, each pause in the chant, Quilian played Gil's body. Sucking on his nipples. Licking his cock. Laving his balls. Pressing a lubed finger into his ass.

Gil danced along the edge of arousal, sighing the words to the spell. His hips moved restlessly as need sparked slowly within him. Each touch from Quilian strung his want and need tighter and tighter, drew him closer and closer, until the final caesura brought a skating touch of fingertips across his prostate, and he moaned the last note.

His cock poised at the Gil's entrance, Quilian rubbed the head against the puckered muscle. When the third chime sounded, they began singing again, and Quilian pushed inside Gil with aching slowness.

Gil's hips rose to meet him, moving with equal restraint. Finally, oh finally, he was filled, and then Quilian withdrew. Not quite pulling out of Gil. In and out, each word of the spell sighed or growled.

With the fourth chime, holding on to each other to ensure Quilian remained inside Gil, they turned over. Quilian looked up at Gil, all of his emotions unmasked, visible for the first time. With assistance from Quilian's hands on his hips, Gil lifted himself up and let himself down again. Keeping to the rhythm of the spell, feeling arousal spinning between them with the rising of the chant. And near the end, as Gil's balls drew up and his cock ached for a single touch, as Quilian's fingers dug bruises into Gil's skin with the effort of holding back, Gil raised his hands and stretched his left palm until three drops of blood fell on the crown of his head.

The fifth chime sounded, and they stopped.

"Ah," soughed out of Gil as he released a breath. Power ran through him, causing tremors as it fought the constraints of the spell.

Quilian arched an eyebrow, and he nodded in response to the unasked question.

Getting to his feet was hard, even with Quilian's help, and made more awkward by the sloshing sensation as the magic levels moved and settled. He remained on the stone, waiting, as Quilian went to get their clothes. The blood burned hotly on his scalp.

To Gil's relief, Quilian left their clothes on the chest and picked up two of the light gray robes they used to keep from getting cold during rituals. After Quilian draped the robes over their shoulders to provide a minimum of modesty, Gil nestled into his embrace, leaning his back against Quilian's chest, and gaining reassurance from his strength.

"Do you have enough power?" Gil asked, unable to determine Quilian's magic level through the noise made by his own.

"At the very least," Quilian responded.

The sixth chime was accompanied by the opening of the door.

Frost walked in, and the door closed behind her. She walked with a confidence and ease that she hadn't had when they found her. Her hair was neatly brushed, and her skin was clear and unmarked. Although she seemed tiny as she climbed up to join them on the stone, she looked far older than eleven.

"Are you okay," Gil asked, fighting the urge to comfort her.

"Fine," Frost said. "And, yes, I remember that none of it was my fault, and I'm not evil or horrible. So, can we do it?"

"Are you sure it's what you want?" Quilian asked.

"You'll find me a home far away from them? Make me a boy, so they can't find me, and give me power so they can't hurt me?" She spoke the words quickly, almost tumbling over them in her eagerness to get them out.

"We will," Gil said. The magic inside him surged, turning the words into a binding oath.

"Wow." Frost's blue eyes widened, and she looked around. "Is that what magic feels like?"

"Sometimes." Gil reached out and pulled her close. "It can be a lot of fun."

They got into position. Frost faced Gil, and Quilian pressed up against Gil from behind, the fabric of their robes thin enough that Gil could feel the heat and hardness of Quilian's erection nudging his cleft.

"Take my left arm with your left," Gil instructed Frost. As soon as her hand was clasped around his forearm, he cupped her left elbow with his left hand.

Resting back against Quilian, Gil raised his right hand. Began to sing the last, long word of the spell and pulled one of the blood-marked hairs from the crown of his head.

The magic trapped inside Gil flicked lightning through every cell of his body. A thick, twisted ladder of power followed the hair, arcing in the air as Gil fought to hold on, to drape the hair along Frost's part so that the follicle was centered in the crown of her head.

Power, pain, and pleasure exploded between them, tearing Gil apart and putting him back together again. He heard a scream, but didn't know, didn't care if it was his or Frost's.

When it was over, Callendra swayed and fought to stay upright. A boy with uncombed black hair and ice-blue eyes blazing with power was grinning at her exultantly.

 _Frost_ , she thought and relief swept through her. She turned to look at Quilian, catching a glimpse of his eyes, shadowed with grief, before her knees buckled and everything went black.

*

Two weeks later, Callendra was tidying up after a class in one of the larger chambers at Sassamon when a graduate student walked in. He had the same wild-eyed, skittish expression that she'd seen on almost all the boys after her change.

"Master Brandish." To his credit, he only stumbled a little over her name. "Dean Bell asked me to deliver this to you."

Not trusting her voice, Callendra gestured at him to leave after he gave her the envelope. It was plain white, with her name typed on the front, and it was the first contact she'd had from him since the ritual.

She opened it carefully and removed the single page. Scanning the words, the invitation to be a witness to Quilian's initiation as a blood mage, she crumpled the paper and hugged herself. "Oh, darling," she whispered, "I'm so sorry."

And she let herself cry.

**Author's Note:**

> If you enjoyed my story, check out the Magic University books and the other stories in the Spellbinding anthology now available from the following outlets:  
> 
>
>>   
> [Ravenous Romance](http://www.ravenousromance.com/fantastica/spellbinding-tales-from-the-magic-university.php#productDescription)
>> 
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>> 
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>> 
>> [All Romance eBooks](http://www.allromanceebooks.com/product-spellbindingtalesfromthemagicuniversity-562516-143.html)
>> 
>> [Smashwords](http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/66443)


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